FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hey everyone! I decided to keep this neat and delete the old post and edit with a big update. So after a lot of fiddling around and asking the mechanic at my work for some assistance and taking some ideas from this post on terraforums

http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showt ... =rainmaker

I have my "rainforest" and "bog garden" automatic watering systems in full trial mode.

NOTE: these systems are still in the trial period.

So I have both water pumps (132 GPH for the bog, 264 GPH for the rainforest)hooked up to an electronic timer that is plugged into one of my ballasts. The pumps only run for 5 minutes once a day, and the soil in all the pots stays quite moist. I have a small air pump and one air stone in each resevoir (5 gallon for the bog, 27 gallon for the rainforest), as of right now the air stones run while my lights are on (16hrs a day, overkill i know).
I shot this video today of the whole system in action, remember this is still in the prototype phase. As you can see in the video there's still plants I haven't repotted into smaller square posts that still need to be hand watered.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZKny0QtJ1g[/youtube]

Questions, Comments?

Update- After running this config for a few days now I have done some tweaking. First off the humidifier and auto watering system now only run once per day. The humidifier turns on for 3 hours at night and the self watering system runs for 2 hours and shuts off right before the lights/fans come on. I made this change because I was noticing the soil is extremely sopping wet. Even though my plants were sitting in constant stagnant water before, I would like to keep them slightly drier in order to inhibit rot or fungus etc.

I feel that I have made significant progress in terms of keeping my grow shelf clean ie, plenty of moving air (box fan, desk fan) bright light (2 t5 HO 4 bulb ballasts) and flowing recyclable water.

More updates to come as further progress/changes are made.

Great job! Keep us posted on your progress. I will likely be automating my watering soon as well.

Bump. Updated.